Grandmother Who Was Forcefully Removed From Her Car During A Traffic Stop Feared For Her Life

“Shut the f--k up and get out of the car!”

The offense of “driving while Black” recently took a turn for the worse when a 65-year-old grandmother accused of “failure to maintain lane” became the victim of police brutality during what should have been a routine traffic stop in Georgia.

Rose Campbell, who disagreed with the reason why she was pulled over on May 4, wouldn’t open her car door to sign the ticket she was issued because she said it would incriminate her for doing something she was innocent of. When she was ordered to get out of her car, she also refused.

That’s when Alpharetta Police Officer Michael Swerdlove decided to take matters in his own hands, literally, by opening the door and forcefully trying to remove her from her SUV.

“All I felt was his whole body over me and I could feel the weight over me, grabbing at my belt,” Cambpell told local WSB-TV reporter Mike Petchenik.

When she again refused to get out, Swerdlove told her she was being arrested for disorderly conduct and called for backup — for an elderly woman who was not being combative.

Eerily reminiscent of Sandra Bland‘s arrest, the entire episode was captured on dash cam video, which showed Swerdlove yelling curses in the face of Cambpell, who, at that point, was screaming out of apparent fear for her life.

“Hey, you’re not in charge,” Swerdlove yelled in response to Campbell’s demand to see a supervisor. “Shut the f–k up and get out of the car!”

There were at least three officers manhandling Campbell and trying to subdue the woman, who, again, is a 65-year-old grandmother.

“Am I in a movie? Is this a movie? I couldn’t believe it. It was surreal. I didn’t expect that in America,” Cambpell said. “I was scared. I felt like I was ganged up on.”

Swerdlove has since been suspended for his actions, which “do not represent who we are as an organization,” Alpharetta Police Chief John Robison said in video posted to Facebook video on Thursday.

Campbell’s violent encounter with police came on the heels of multiple recent instances of racial profiling that have led to questionable confrontations of Black people for doing what non-Black people typically don’t get bothered for doing.

22. Scenes From The Demonstration Against Racism At Starbucks

The protest is growing outside the @Starbucks. The woman on the right in the red shirt is 90 years old and told a story about her father who died when she was 9 as a result of racial profiling and police brutality. pic.twitter.com/DxQb5OYtSG

Activists Protest Racial Profiling, Arrests Of Black People In Starbucks

Black Lives Matter activists called for a boycott of the Starbucks coffee chain just days after an employee called the police to arrest two Black men inside a Philadelphia location were not buying anything and wouldn't leave. Despite a number of factors that should have convinced police to show discretion and restraint -- the men were not armed; they were not violent; they did not resist arrest; the White man who they were meeting yelled at the police that the men did nothing wrong; a bystander filmed the entire episode on video -- then men were still taken into custody Thursday.
The video has since gone viral.
https://twitter.com/missydepino/status/984539713016094721
The first of what is expected to be many protests took place April 14 at the Starbucks location in question.